The Carter Center is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization founded in 1982 by former U.S. PresidentJimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter. In partnership with Emory University, The Carter Center works to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering.[4] The Center is governed by a Board of Trustees, consisting of many prominent business persons, educators, former government officials, and eminent philanthropists. The Atlanta-based center has helped to improve the quality of life for people in more than 80 countries.[5]

In 2002, President Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work “to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development” through The Carter Center.[6]

Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope chronicles the first 25 years of The Carter Center. It was written by President Carter and published in 2007 by Simon & Schuster.

The Center was founded in 1982 and dedicated in 1986 with William Foege as its executive director.[7] John Hardman was appointed executive director in 1993, and during the 1990s the Center received several multi-million dollar donations to fight Guinea worm disease and to prevent blindness.[8]

The Center strives to give millions of the world’s poorest people access to skills and knowledge they can use to identify solutions that will improve their own lives. Since its founding, the Center achieved a number of milestones, including:

Strengthening international standards for human rights and the voices of individuals defending those rights

Advancing efforts to improve mental health care.

Being a mediator in certain disputes.

Governance[edit]

The Center is governed by a board of trustees, which oversees the organization’s assets and property and promotes its objectives and goals.

A community advisory group – the Board of Councilors – includes public and private-sector leaders who support The Carter Center and its activities in their communities and organizations. Members attend quarterly presentations on the Center’s work.

CEO (Ret.) Ambassador [9] Mary Ann Peters oversees the Center’s day-to-day operations and staff of 175,[1] which includes international experts in the fields of peace and health. More than 100 student interns from universities around the world assist the staff each year.

Center-based councils of eminent persons who offer guidance to or participate in Center activities include: the Council of Presidents and Prime Ministers of the Americas, the International Council for Conflict Resolution, the International Task Force for Disease Eradication, and the Mental Health Task Force. The Carter Center also collaborates with other public and private organizations.

Peace programs[edit]

Observing elections[edit]

The Carter Center is a trusted pioneer of election observation, sending teams of observers to determine the legitimacy of 98 elections[10] in 38 countries since 1989.[11]

Carter Center observers analyze election laws, assess voter education and registration processes, and evaluate fairness in campaigns. The presence of impartial election observers deters interference or fraud in the voting process, and reassures voters that they can safely and secretly cast their ballots and that vote tabulation will be conducted without tampering.

The Carter Center sends observers only when invited by a country’s electoral authorities and welcomed by the major political parties. Observers do not interfere in the electoral process and do not represent the U.S. government.[12]

The Center played a key role – with the U.N. Electoral Assistance Division and the National Democratic Institute – in building consensus on a common set of international principles for election observation.[13] It is also leading the effort to develop effective methodologies for observing elections that employ new electronic voting technologies.[14]

Strengthening democracy beyond elections[edit]

The Carter Center supports the growth of democratic institutions to ensure that there is a respect for rule of law and human rights, that government decisions are open and transparent, and that everyone can have adequate resources to compete fairly for public office.

For example, the Center is supporting the efforts of civic leaders in Ethiopia to convene discussions about the most pressing and contentious political and social issues facing the country, and in the Palestinian Territories, it maintains a small presence in Ramallah focused on the ongoing monitoring and analysis of critical issues of democratic development.[15]

Democratic initiatives in Latin America include support for regional access-to-information programs, creation of an inter-American support network, and reform of political campaign financing. The Center-based Council of Presidents and Prime Ministers of the Americas plays an important role in accomplishing these objectives.[16]

The Carter Center also promotes the dissemination to emerging democracies and regional organizations of models, lessons, and best practices for democratic governance. The goal is to empower those in transitioning countries who are trying to build stronger democratic institutions and practices.

Advancing human rights[edit]

The Carter Center believes all people are entitled to basic human rights. These rights include political rights, such as peace, freedom, and self-governance, as well as the social rights of health care, food, shelter, and economic opportunity.

President and Mrs. Carter have intervened with heads of state on behalf of human rights defenders and victims for more than 20 years. They often take their human rights concerns to heads of state in personal meetings and through letters.

Mediating conflict[edit]

Recalling President Carter’s success in the White House negotiating the long-lasting peace treaty between Israel and Egypt,[18] groups in conflict turn to The Carter Center to help them prevent and resolve conflict. Lacking any official authority, the Center has become a trusted broker for peace, serving as a channel for dialogue and negotiation.

Recent examples include:

President Carter’s mission to North Korea in 1994, which paved the way for a U.S.-North Korea pact on nuclear issues.[19]

Assisting unofficial Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in designing a model agreement for peace – called the Geneva Accord – in 2002-03.[20]

President Carter’s mission to Haiti in 1994 with Senator Sam Nunn and the then former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell to avert a U.S.-led multinational invasion and restore to power Haiti’s democratically elected president.[22]

Assisting China village elections[edit]

Since 1988, the Chinese government has authorized direct village elections to help maintain social and political order in the context of rapid economic reforms. At the invitation of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Carter Center initiated a joint project in 1998 to standardize Chinese village election procedures and assist in training of election officials and elected National People’s Congress deputies.

Health programs[edit]

The Center has prevented the suffering of millions of people around the world from illnesses often ignored by others. Health programs seek to provide people with the information and access to services they need to treat their illnesses and take steps to prevent future spread of disease. An emphasis is placed on building partnerships for change among international agencies, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and corporations and on working with ministries of health to strengthen or establish permanent health care delivery systems in the poorest nations.

During his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, Carter commented on what he felt is the greatest challenge the world faces:

“Among all the possible choices, I decided that the most serious and universal problem is the growing chasm between the richest and poorest people on earth. Citizens of the ten wealthiest countries are now 75 times richer than those who live in the ten poorest ones, and the separation is increasing every year, not only between nations but also within them. The results of this disparity are root causes of most of the world’s unresolved problems, including starvation, illiteracy, environmental degradation, violent conflict and unnecessary illnesses that range from Guinea worm to HIV/AIDS. Tragically, in the industrialized world there is a terrible absence of understanding or concern about those who are enduring lives of despair and hopelessness. We have not yet made the commitment to share with others an appreciable part of our excessive wealth. This is a necessary and potentially rewarding burden that we should all be willing to assume."[27]

Disease eradication efforts[edit]

The Carter Center began spearheading the campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease worldwide in 1986. At the time, there were about 3.5 million annual cases of the disease in 20 countries in Africa and Asia. In 2013, there were 148 reported cases in four countries: South Sudan, Chad, Mali, and Ethiopia.[28] Guinea worm disease is poised to be the first parasitic disease to be eradicated and the only disease to be eradicated without the use of vaccines or drugs.

Within affected countries, the Center reinforces existing disease eradication programs by providing technical and financial assistance, as well as logistics and tools, such as donated filter cloth material, larvicide, and medical kits.[29]

Implementing disease control and treatment measures[edit]

Since 1996, the Center has been a leader in the fight against onchocerciasis, commonly known as river blindness – a parasitic disease transmitted by the bites of black flies.

The Center has worked to stop the spread of the disease in 11 countries across Africa and the Americas by helping residents and local health workers institute and sustain drug treatment programs and health education activities. The international river blindness campaign seeks to eliminate the disease from the Western Hemisphere by 2015.[31]

The Center has distributed more than 125 million doses of Mectizan (ivermectin)[32] – a drug donated by Merck & Co., Inc., that treats and prevents river blindness.[33]

Center health workers also prevent transmission of trachoma – a bacterial infection that is the leading cause of preventable blindness worldwide. Trachoma is prevalent in places that lack the tools for basic hygiene, clean water, and adequate sanitation.

The Center follows the World Health Organization’s four-pronged approach – called the SAFE strategy – to fight trachoma in six African countries.[34] The Trachoma Control Program is working to improve sanitation in those communities by building latrines, providing corrective surgery, distributing antibiotics, and educating communities on basic hygiene.

As of March 2010[update], The Carter Center has helped to build more than one million latrines in its effort to fight trachoma.[32]

The latrines contain and prevent human waste from serving as a breeding ground for the disease-carrying flies, thereby reducing one way the disease is spread.[35]

Training public health workers[edit]

The Carter Center believes in building networks of village-based health care workers to treat people for various diseases at the same time. Emphasis is on helping national and local governments establish programs that they can sustain into the future.

Strengthening agricultural production[edit]

In partnership with the Sasakawa Africa Association, the Center has worked since 1986 in 15 sub-Saharan African countries to teach 8-10 million small-scale farmers improved techniques that double or triple their crop yields.[37]

The program promotes use of fertilizers and crop protection chemicals, soil fertility, and environmentally friendly agronomic methods of crop production. It also supports efforts to construct quality grain storage to sustain market prices for the farmer and ensure greater food security, establish farmers' associations, and use quality food crops such as high-protein maize.

Reducing stigma of mental illness[edit]

Rosalynn Carter leads the Center’s efforts to fight stigma associated with mental illness. The Center works to improve U.S. public policies that can help prevent mental illnesses and increase equity in mental health care, holding an annual symposium with national leaders in mental health and other fields.

The Center also seeks to raise public awareness of mental health issues globally through the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism, which enable journalists to explore mental health issues. To date, more than 100 journalists have participated in the program.[38]

Of the donations from the Middle East, the Center states: "Seventy-eight percent of those funds have helped to support health programs in Africa, 14 percent have gone to the institution's endowment, 4 percent were for original construction of buildings at headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, and 4 percent for projects to directly promote peace, such as specific election observations.[45]

Venezuelan election[edit]

Some individuals have disputed the Center’s endorsement of the electoral process in the Venezuelan recall referendum of 2004.[47] Fox News' Doug Schoen told Michael Barone at U.S. News and World Report, "Our internal sourcing tells us that there was fraud in the Venezuelan central commission. There are widespread reports of irregularities and evidence of fraud, many of them ably recorded by Mary Anastasia O'Grady in the Wall Street Journal last week. Carter is untroubled by any of this, and declares that Chavez won 'fair and square.'"[48][49] The Carter Center looked into the allegations and released a paper and statistical analysis reaffirming their original conclusions.[50]